Guild Wars 2

1. Introduce more stealth counter play.
2. Introduce evade counter play.
3. Change chilled to effect thief in some way, perhaps by increasing the initiative cost of skills by 66%.

Thieves are already easy to kill… Another alternative would be to L2P

Demonts.4593:

Thieves are already easy to kill… Another alternative would be to L2P

Try adding something beneficial to the thread, it could be a negative opinion were you try to prove that thieves are fine. But don’t do the l2p card, it makes you look ignorant.

Ok. Nobody uses stealth thieves in PvP. The only way thieves make the meta are with s/d. Stealth (unless u trait into acrobatics) is literally the only defense thieves have. I kill 80% of the thieves i play whether i play thief, warrior or mesmer. They can only really stealth for 3 seconds at a time unless they use shadow refuge too. Reducing thief stealth and initiative would be like weakening other classes armor (or other defensive strategy) and cooldowns. Stealth thieves are pretty weak right now in general and direct damage needs a buff if anything

thief is a joke in sPvP. warrior and necro >>>>>>>>>> thief any day

Aza.2105:

3. Change chilled to effect thief in some way, perhaps by increasing the initiative cost of skills by 66%.

Thief’s initiative already won’t allow him to cast ALL his 4 weapon abilities one after another. Even with 15 ini he can’t cast more than 2-3(rarely 4 cheap) abilities without using some ini regeneration abilities/traits and pauses between his strikes. And you suggest to completely turn him into spam 111111111(2 or 3 or 4 or 5)111111 class. What did you think before posting this? Did you?

Azraelle.1683:

Aza.2105:

3. Change chilled to effect thief in some way, perhaps by increasing the initiative cost of skills by 66%.

Thief’s initiative already won’t allow him to cast ALL his 4 weapon abilities one after another. Even with 15 ini he can’t cast more than 2-3(rarely 4 cheap) abilities without using some ini regeneration abilities/traits and pauses between his strikes. And you suggest to completely turn him into spam 111111111(2 or 3 or 4 or 5)111111 class. What did you think before posting this? Did you?

He’s making a suggestion to make chill have the same effect on thieves as it would on other players. Why should thieves have more advantage towards a certain condition then other classes? As an Elementalist even the internal cooldown between switching elementals is affected by chill. How is that exactly fair? Instead of flaming people and telling their idea is poor you should think things through when you’re about to write such crap.

It affects recharge skills and steal. Initiative. Is a Resource pool just AS life shroud is. Chill doesnt affect Resource pools. Deal With it? Engineers dont have to worry about weapon a weapon swap CD the game is assymetrical and looks for balance within that not in sameness.

Evade counters is counter productive to the purpose. The counterplay itself is attacking during the aftercast and non-iframes if its not a full evade. These are basic principles Genres have accepted. Maybe its because GW2 is in a hybrid Stadt between the old targetting systems and Mord contemporary action combat that players need target based solution to an action based Problem.

Stealth doesnt need More counterplay it needs to stop being handedout nilly Willy and durations made consistent. 11s of stealth is completely out of sync with the original way it was marketed to the playerbase.

The “weakness” of thief design is having skills with significant more general use than others making them more preferable in 80% of cases. It diminishes the value of weapon swapping and makes it more of an unfortunate inconvenience you have to ocassionally do. Coupled with base initiative being incredibly tight without INI regen traits and effects that are ridiculous for their cost until traits come in to play.

MrBig once pointed this out though who knows where his train of thought is now; How off the untraited thief is to treated versions. You end up seeing a similar state with 30 DA thieves where there small resource pool coupled with little or none INI regen makes them completely hit or miss, high risk rare reward, hit or run players without any resource to run with for that matter. Hence why you pretty much only see 30 DA on the non existent venom thieves. Despite its lack of effect on the weapon skills not mattering for kitten given how thieves normally use less variety in skill use to worry about to begin with given how long a thief sits in a weapon set for relative to everyone else. Yes we needed chill to have an affect so they can continue to use less skills than everyone else since there is a shared pool for both weapon sets.

But forget that let’s focus on kittening chill as one of the great crimes of the thief. Not SRS.

1. Select thief class folder
2. Right click it
3. “Delete”

Thieves are already effected by chilled. They move much slower.

Chill is already really strong against thieves as they require on attacking really fast. Its kind of like pumping the brakes on them! I don’t play a thief, but as an ele fighting a thief, chill is one of my best defenses.

I am not even all that bothered by the evade spam or stealth. I just think that infiltrator’s strike needs a shorter range and more rules so that positioning is actually a thing. Right now, this one skill just allows thieves to dump all over any concept of intelligent positioning play. Also, if you take away the automatic get-out-of-jail-free-whenever nature of infil-strike/shadow return then perma-evade thief is eventually caught/stunned/immobed and killed, assuming all they do is spam evades rather than play more tactically.

ensoriki.5789:

Evade counters is counter productive to the purpose. The counterplay itself is attacking during the aftercast and non-iframes if its not a full evade.

Stealth doesnt need More counterplay it needs to stop being handedout nilly Willy and durations made consistent. 11s of stealth is completely out of sync with the original way it was marketed to the playerbase.

The “weakness” of thief design is having skills with significant more general use than others making them more preferable in 80% of cases. It diminishes the value of weapon swapping and makes it more of an unfortunate inconvenience you have to ocassionally do. Coupled with base initiative being incredibly tight without INI regen traits and effects that are ridiculous for their cost until traits come in to play.

What thief builds don’t use regen traits?

So your perspective is that thief’s weakness is their skills have a more universal appeal which makes weapon swapping less favorable? Are you kidding me man? All of this is to justify the fact that many of their skills do not have hard counters.

Do you understand why counter play scares the average player? Stick with me now because this may just blow your mind. Counter play requires the player to “THINK”. You do not have to think when nothing you do has a form of potential punishment attached to it. The result is you just do it again and again until you succeed.

You said a evade counter is counter productive. And that all you have to do is time to frames to hit them while they are vulnerable. What skill besides auto attacks and the occasional instant skill has the ability to hit a thief in the interval when they transition from finishing a evade to starting another?

The stealth mechanic itself is counter productive to the game, which is suppose to be so visual that you are suppose to look at the animations as if it was a fighting game. To determine your next move. What is the problem? Stealth makes the enemy invisible, so you can’t see what animations they will do.

Even in street fighter, with a character who has stealth like Twelve in sf3, you could still see the outline of their figure. So counter play was possible. Stealth in gw2 completely removes the entity from the battlefield, single handly negating the idea that understanding character animations are essential for winning.

Everything in your post denies the fact that counter play should exist. Gw2 is in its current state because it doesn’t exist.

BlackBeard.2873:

Chill is already really strong against thieves as they require on attacking really fast. Its kind of like pumping the brakes on them! I don’t play a thief, but as an ele fighting a thief, chill is one of my best defenses.

I am not even all that bothered by the evade spam or stealth. I just think that infiltrator’s strike needs a shorter range and more rules so that positioning is actually a thing. Right now, this one skill just allows thieves to dump all over any concept of intelligent positioning play. Also, if you take away the automatic get-out-of-jail-free-whenever nature of infil-strike/shadow return then perma-evade thief is eventually caught/stunned/immobed and killed, assuming all they do is spam evades rather than play more tactically.

Chilled doesn’t effect attack speed. Only run speed and skill cooldown.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chilled

I believe that the sword 2 skill on thief is the only “broken thing they have” at the moment. Otherwise the class is not very strong and extremely hard to play. This post is completely ridiculous.

Aza.2105:

What thief builds don’t use regen traits?

You’ve completely missed the point of bringing it up which is pointing out contrast between the thief’s base state and what traits provide them.That directly relates to the frequency of stealth and evades.

So your perspective is that thief’s weakness is their skills have a more universal appeal which makes weapon swapping less favorable? Are you kidding me man? All of this is to justify the fact that many of their skills do not have hard counters.

Weapon swapping is less favorable on a thief because it doesn’t increase anything for you. All Weapon swap does is provide you some utility functions. On a War you can rush to a target, bladetrail, HB, whirling strike, using all 4 cooldowns. Swap and have 4 up because the cooldowns are seperate. On Thief you use BP, Inf strike, PW, you are not tapped, switch to Shortbow, no initiative for anything because the resource is global. For that reason it’s not about universal appeal wtf, it’s because flat out if you had 5 ini in D/P, you have 5 ini in Shortbow, With multiple skills dealing insignificant damage the main to swap is for the utility of it. If Chill actually affected thieves it be causing a global effect on the usage of 8 skills. Rather than the 1-1 on use nature it has with CD skills, which thief is not exempt from since the other half of their skillbar is affected by chill.

Do you understand why counter play scares the average player? Stick with me now because this may just blow your mind. Counter play requires the player to “THINK”. You do not have to think when nothing you do has a form of potential punishment attached to it. The result is you just do it again and again until you succeed.

Im sorry wtf is scary about counter-play? If players don’t want to think they can play Snakes & Ladders.

There is no counter for PW in game, just like how most of the game lacks counter play.

It doesn’t even sound like you know how to play against a telegraphed root, multi-hit skill with a 2s animation. You don’t have to stick with me here, because your mind is already long since blown.

You said a evade counter is counter productive. And that all you have to do is time to frames to hit them while they are vulnerable. What skill besides auto attacks and the occasional instant skill has the ability to hit a thief in the interval when they transition from finishing a evade to starting another?

Is this even a serious question? Outside of Distracting shot, none of the thieves actual evade weapon skills chain to back with full i-frames. You can’t evade with LS for 5s or until you pop it, vulnerable frames. Death blossom doesn’t have complete iframes and can easily be interrupted by interrupt skills. Pistol whip’s stun takes as long to come out as CND and is vulnerable even after landing that stun. So the only other evades coming through are A) RFI, Dodge rolls possibly extended with Signet of Agility and C) Withdraw possibly extended with Rune of Adventurer in a rare blue moon that you won’t see since if anything they’ll have rune of Lyssa.

The stealth mechanic itself is counter productive to the game, which is suppose to be so visual that you are suppose to look at the animations as if it was a fighting game. To determine your next move. What is the problem? Stealth makes the enemy invisible, so you can’t see what animations they will do.

Stealth is to be a brief defense, which is manageable by a sense of pacing. Except when the duration is long it’s all you need to do is flipping count.

Even in street fighter, with a character who has stealth like Twelve in sf3, you could still see the outline of their figure. So counter play was possible. Stealth in gw2 completely removes the entity from the battlefield, single handly negating the idea that understanding character animations are essential for winning.

Stealth doesn’t remove you from the battlefield. It removes you from sight and makes you untargettable those are different from being a removed entity from the game. Invulnerability is much closer to that in actual effect.

Everything in your post denies the fact that counter play should exist. Gw2 is in its current state because it doesn’t exist.

Um what? More like you’re trying to create some idea of “No counter-play” that you can attack just for the sake of making noise. No one said anything about having no counter-play or denied it’s value. However apparently you have some perspective where telegraphed skills have no counter-play to them.

ensoriki.5789:

Um what? More like you’re trying to create some idea of “No counter-play” that you can attack just for the sake of making noise. No one said anything about having no counter-play or denied it’s value. However apparently you have some perspective where telegraphed skills have no counter-play to them.

What would I gain from “making noise”? There is no gain in it. This is just you projecting, just like you project when you assume what I wrote is based upon my personal experience vs thief. So I’ll tell you flat out right now, you can remove that from future response you write to me. Because I’m not writing subjectively, but objectively.

I don’t have any allegiance to any class in this game unlike many people who play. But I call out things when I see them.

Its apparent you have the meaning of counter play confused with avoidance since you go on to reply to me in respect to my statement about no counter play with this:

“It doesn’t even sound like you know how to play against a telegraphed root, multi-hit skill with a 2s animation. You don’t have to stick with me here, because your mind is already long since blown.”

Telegraphed skills can “be avoided” but were is the counter play? There is a distinct difference between the two. What you are saying here is like someone asking how do you counter a class that relies on boon spam, to which you reply: “Wait until the boons fade then attack them”. Its a legit tactic but its not counter play, counter play would be to make a build that boon strips.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/counter

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/avoidance

Again, very distinct difference in what the word means.

I also want to note, that I did not do any name calling in my post to you or anyone in this thread. In fact, I stated that its fine to have opposing thoughts about a subject. But when you begin to start to take personal blows, its weak.

just nerf evades and everything will be fine

I have no problem with these changes. Please understand, however, that you’d have to severely buff thieves in other ways if they happened.

Aza.2105:

Its apparent you have the meaning of counter play confused with avoidance since you go on to reply to me in respect to my statement about no counter play with this:

“It doesn’t even sound like you know how to play against a telegraphed root, multi-hit skill with a 2s animation. You don’t have to stick with me here, because your mind is already long since blown.”

Telegraphed skills can “be avoided” but were is the counter play? There is a distinct difference between the two. What you are saying here is like someone asking how do you counter a class that relies on boon spam, to which you reply: “Wait until the boons fade then attack them”. Its a legit tactic but its not counter play, counter play would be to make a build that boon strips.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/counter

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/avoidance

Again, very distinct difference in what the word means.

Read the definition yourself.
Then go play the game and read the skills.
You can interrupt Pistol whip
Shocked aura, distortion, headshot, counterattack, fear, so on and so forth. Moving past the ability to interrupt you can also adjust play to face it and mitigate it’s significance or make it threatening to the user, pop retal to counter punish, pop stability to negate it’s holding power, pop a blind to prevent the stun, teleport out. Continue about how a telegraphed skill with plenty of vulnerability frames doesn’t let you counter it’s like saying Zealots defense and HB can’t be countered. I don’t need to wait until PW is finished then attack, the tactic is straight interrupt it, that is countering it. Are you even remotely serious?

3 Steps is far too much. Here’s 1 easy step to fixing thief
1) Force anyone who wants to cry about thief on the forums to play one for a week against players with a modicum of skill.

And you’re done – You’ll either learn a thief’s strengths and weaknesses, or be asking for some buffs to thieves less than viable weaponsets/utilities/traits.

It’s hilarious how I can pick up a class I’ve never played before and almost perfectly counter a thief after I’ve reached the point where I remember what my buttons do.

Aza.2105:

1. Introduce more stealth counter play.
2. Introduce evade counter play.
3. Change chilled to effect thief in some way, perhaps by increasing the initiative cost of skills by 66%.

Kitten i’ll save you 3 steps.

1. Delete thieves

BOOM! done- give me a free reroll to warrior so i can faceroll my way to victory